SPEECH  OF  SARA  BARD  FIELD 
FEBRUARY  THE  FIFTEENTH 

MDCCCCXXI 
ATWASHINGTON-D-C- 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 

From  the  Library  of 

Charles  Erskine  Scott  Wood 

and  his  Wife 

Sara  Bard  Field 

Given  in  Memory  of 

JAMES  R.CALDWELL 


THE  SPEECH  OF 

SARA  BARD  FIELD 

PRESENTING  TO  CONGRESS  ON 
BEHALF  OFTHE  WOMEN  OFTHE  NATION 

THE  MARBLE  BUSTS  OF 
THREE  SUFFRAGE  PIONEERS 

LUCRETIA  MOTT 
ELIZABETH  STANTON  CADY 
SUSAN  BROWNELL  ANTHONY 


SAN  FRANCISCO: 

PRIVATELY  PRINTED  BY 

JOHN  HENRY  NASH 

1921 


THE  speech  of  Sara  Bard  Field,  delivered 
February  fifteenth,  nineteen  hundred  & 
twenty-one,  at  half  past  eight  o  clock  in 
the  evening  in  the  rotunda  of  the  capital  at  Wash- 
ington, presenting  to  Congress  on  behalf  of  the 
Women  of  the  Nation  as  a  memorial  the  marble 
busts  of  three  suffrage  pioneers:  Lucre tia  Mott, 
Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  and  Susan  Browne// 
Anthony;  Jane  Addams presiding ;  Speaker  F. 
H.  Gillett  responding  on  behalf  of  Congress. 

CHAIRMAN  JANE  ADDAMS,  RESPECTED  AND  BELOVED  OF  THE 
WHOLE  WORLD,  MR.  SPEAKER  AND  FRIENDS  : 

The  women  of  this  country,  through  the  repre- 
sentative organizations  gathered  here  tonight,  are 
celebrating  their  hard  won  political  freedom  by 
presenting  to  the  nation  a  lasting  memorial — the 
busts  of  three  women,  Lucretia  Mott,  Elizabeth 
Cady  Stan  ton  and  Susan  Brownell  Anthony — who 
were  pioneers  in  the  woman's  revolution,  leaders 
in  the  persecuted  advance  guard  of  that  vast  army 
of  women,  known  and  unknown,who  have  fought 
for  political  justice.  Although  we  have  taken  the 
likenesses  of  three  prominent  women  for  this  me- 
morial, nevertheless  in  its  deepest  significance  it 


is  a  monument  to  women  past,  present  and  to 
come. 

There  is  an  historic  moment  in  the  career  of 
Napoleon  which  lives  in  the  heart  of  every 
Frenchman.  Napoleon,  having  led  his  army  into 
Egypt,  came  to  the  Pyramids  and  sitting  on  his 
horse  gazed  at  the  Sphinx  and  said,  "Here  forty 
centuries  look  down  on  us. "  Tonight  as  we  look 
upon  these  marble  busts  of  our  Great  Dead  and 
realize  the  significance  of  this  moment,  what 
loving  heart  of  us  but  does  not  feel  that  not  forty 
centuries  alone  but  all  the  centuries  since  Time 
was  born  are  gazing  down  on  us.  The  busts  in 
themselves  are  not  an  ancient  work  like  the 
Sphinx.  They  have  been  but  recently  completed 
by  Adelaide  Johnson.  But  the  struggle  for  jus- 
tice, the  passionate  struggle  for  freedom,  of  which 
these  women  have  been  so  unique  a  part  is  as  old 
as  the  dawn  of  self-consciousness  in  the  twilight 
of  man's  first  birth.  And  because  it  is  a  struggle 
which  not  only  has  endured  throughout  the  cen- 
turies that  have  gone  but  in  ever-changing  form 
must  endure,  always,  you  and  I,  with  prophetic 
vision,  can  see  the  centuries  to  come  looking  back 
at  this  moment  as  one  of  the  milestones  on  the 
upward  path  of  Progress.  Here  before  us  about 
to  become  the  sacred  property  of  the  Nation  are 
three  women  who  are  now  part  of  that  "Choir 


Invisible  who  live  again  in  minds  made  better  by 
their  presence." 

Mr.  Speaker,  we  women  who  are  uniting  in  this 
Presentation  do  not  feel  we  are  so  much  honor- 
ing these  three  rebel  leaders  as  we  are  honoring 
Congress  itself  by  committing  these  busts  to  its 
keeping.  For,  Mr.  Speaker,  we  do  not  commit  to 
your  keeping  merely  a  block  of  marble  wrought 
into  likenesses  which  in  a  chaste  repose  like  Death 
itself  will  henceforth  remain  in  Statuary  Hall, 
but  we  commit  to  your  keeping  blood-red  memo- 
ries, alive  and  pulsing — the  labor  of  these  women 
by  day  and  by  night;  the  daring  attack  on  en- 
trenched Custom  and  Superstition  and  formida- 
ble Institution,  the  defying  of  even  that  religious 
sanction  which  like  a  whitened  sepulchre  had 
been  built  about  the  rotting  bones  of  woman's 
slavery,  the  gallant  acceptance  of  the  mysterious 
challenge  to  live  a  great  life  for  others  at  the  ex- 
pense of  self  rather  than  a  little  life  for  self  at 
the  expense  of  others — with  all  the  bitter  loneli- 
ness this  entailed — the  persecutions,  the  mis- 
understandings, the  slanders,  the  heartaches,  the 
ever-deferred  hopes  and  "the  ability  to  take 
infinite  pains,"  which  Goethe  tells  us  is  the  mark 
of  genius, — all  these,  Mr.  Speaker,  we  bring  in 
tender  hands  and  commit  to  the  keeping  of  Con- 
gress. To  say  that  Lucretia  Mott  and  Elizabeth 

3 


Cady  Stanton  called  the  first  Women's  Rights 
Convention  in  1848;  to  say  that  they  were  re- 
spectively President  and  Vice-President,  and 
Susan  B.  Anthony  Corresponding  Secretary  of 
the  first  American  Equal  Rights  Association  is 
merely  to  hint  at  the  rich  outpouring  of  lives 
which  these  women  gave  on  behalf  of  women, 
and  of  the  Nation,  and  of  the  human  race,  re- 
membering as  we  must — "man  that  is  born  of 


woman." 


And,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  do  not  feel  I  arrogate  to  my 
faith  in  women  too  much  when  I  say  that  with 
the  dedication  of  these  busts  of  our  pioneers 
there  is  presented  tonight  the  renewed  dedica- 
tion of  the  women  of  this  Land  to  the  vast  work 
of  a  greater  freedom  which  lies  before  us.  It  is 
Universal  Freedom  for  which  the  movement 
represented  by  these  women  has  ever  been.  The 
Woman's  Rights  Movement  was  born  in  the  very 
body  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Movement.  Lucretia 
Mott,  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  and  Susan  B. 
Anthony  refused  to  narrow  the  suffrage  agitation 
down  to  women  alone  while  the  negro  but  re- 
cently freed  from  chattel  slavery  remained  in 
political  bondage.  The  very  first  Suffrage  Asso- 
ciation was  called  the  American  Equal  Rights 
Association  and  its  object  was  to  enfranchise  the 
negro  as  well  as  the  woman.  Listen  to  these 


words  written  by  Susan  B.  Anthony  and  intro- 
duced as  part  of  a  resolution  in  the  Convention 
which  formed  the  first  American  Equal  Rights 
Association:  "Hence  our  demand  must  now  go 
beyond  women.  It  must  extend  to  the  farthest 
bound  of  the  principle  of  the  'consent  of  the 
governed*  as  the  only  authorized  or  just  govern- 
ment. We  therefore  wish  to  broaden  our  Wo- 
man's Rights  platform  and  make  it  in  name  what 
it  has  ever  been  in  spirit — a  human  rights'  plat- 
form." Do  you  think  that  women  who  thought 
in  those  terms  would  sit  idle  today  because  poli- 
tical democracy  has  become  an  accomplished 
fact  in  this  nation?  Do  you  think  that  women 
like  these  who  published  a  paper  in  the  sixties 
called  "Revolution"  would  not  see  the  need  of 
that  brooding  angel's  presence  still  ?  Needless  to 
say  I  do  not  speak  in  terms  of  bloody  revolution 
any  more  than  did  they.  But  men  and  women 
are  not  yet  free. 

We  have  won  political  freedom  and  now  man 
and  woman,  comrades  in  the  experiment  of  poli- 
tical democracy,  we  stand  ready  to  advance  to- 
gether. Men  and  women  are  not  yet  free.  The 
slavery  of  greed  endures.  Little  child-workers, 
the  hope  of  the  Future,  are  sacrificed  to  Industry; 
and  the  young  men,  the  sons  of  Mothers,  are 
sent  out  by  the  millions  to  die  for  Profits.  It 


makes  my  heart  glad  to  realize  that  these  busts, 
the  first  gift  of  women  to  the  Nation's  gallery, 
represent  no  military  heroes.  They  represent 
those  who  gave  life — not  took  it.  Their  battle  was 
one  of  mind  and  soul.  They  came  that  they  might 
give  life  and  give  it  more  abundantly.  And  so 
through  their  likenesses  we  are  dedicating  the 
woman's  protest  against  War. 

To  effectively  banish  War  forever  we  must 
destroy  Industrial  Slavery  and  build  the  Indus- 
trial Democracy.  So  long  as  the  earth  belongs  to 
the  few  of  each  land,  those  few  will,  like  dogs 
over  a  bone,  fight  for  its  possession  and  the  young 
men  will  be  sent  out  to  die  for  the  Few,  and  the 
Mothers  will  be  left  desolate.  The  people  every- 
where must  come  into  possession  of  the  earth  so 
that  there  can  be  no  bloody  quarrels  about  that 
which  belongs  to  all. 

Someday  without  a  trumpet  call 

This  word  shall  o'er  the  earth  be  blown ; 

The  heritage  retuxa*  to  all ; 

The  myriad  monarchs  take  their  own. 

And  there  is  the  slavery  to  Privilege  in  all  its 
forms — that  malign  Power  which  dares  to  deny 
to  the  people  of  this  Nation  those  Republican 
rights  for  which  our  fathers  died — the  right  to 
free  assembly,  the  right  to  free  speech. 
The  History  of  Woman's  Suffrage  tells  us  how 

6 


again  and  again  these  three  intrepid  women 
fought  for  the  right  to  give  public  utterance  to 
their  views.  This  is  a  sacred  right  and  if  it  is 
sacred  to  women,  women  must  feel  that  it  is 
sacred  to  every  group  of  every  persuasion.  There 
is  not  a  doctrine  that  should  be  denied  a  tongue. 
Who  knows  in  what  shell  of  doctrine  lies  the 
pearl  of  truth?  "Are  we  then  to  meet  words  with 
words  or  words  with  force?" 

Mr.  Speaker,  you  will  see  that  if  you  thought 
you  came  here  tonight  to  receive  on  behalf  of 
Congress  merely  the  busts  of  three  women  who 
have  fought  the  good  fight  and  gone  to  rest,  you 
were  mistaken.  You  will  see  that  through  them 
it  is  the  body  and  the  blood  of  a  great  sacrificial 
host  which  we  present — the  body  and  the  blood 
of  Revolution,  the  body  and  blood  of  Freedom 
herself.  You  will  see  that  these  women  are  pre- 
sented to  Congress  in  an  invisible  Temple  in 
which  they  at  once  built  and  are  built  upon— 
the  temple  of  Humanity.  jThey  who  sit  down  in 
this  Temple  and  refuse  to  build  their  part,  retard 
its  growth.  But  they  hasten  the  day  of  its  com- 
pletion who  like  these  women  whose  busts  are 
before  us,  refuse  to  be  kept  from  the  higher  call- 
ing to  which  they  are  called.  Listen  and  in  clos- 
ing I  will  in  the  words  of  a  brother-poet  describe 
to  you  this  Temple. 


You  must  understand  this  is  no  dead  pile 
of  stones  and  unmeaning  timber.  It  is  a 
living  thing.  When  you  enter  it  you  hear  a 
sound — a  sound  as  of  some  mighty  poem 
chanted.  Listen  long  enough,  and  you  will 
learn  that  it  is  made  up  of  the  beating  of 
human  hearts,  of  the  nameless  music  of  men's 
souls, — that  is  if  you  have  ears.  If  you  have 
eyes,  you  will  presently  see  the  church  itself 
— a  looming  mystery  of  many  shapes  and 
shadows,  leaping  sheer  from  floor  to  dome. 
The  work  of  no  ordinary  builder!  The  pillars 
of  it  go  up  like  the  brawny  trunks  of  heroes : 
the  sweet  human  flesh  of  men  and  women  is 
moulded  about  its  bulwarks,  strong,  im- 
pregnable: the  faces  of  little  children  laugh 
out  from  every  cornerstone.  The  terrible 
spans  and  arches  of  it  are  the  joined  hands 
of  comrades;  and  up  in  the  heights  and 
spaces  there  are  inscribed  the  numberless 
musings  of  all  the  dreamers  of  the  world.  It 
is  yet  building — building  and  built  upon. 
Sometimes  the  work  goes  forward  in  deep 
darkness;  sometimes  in  blinding  light:  now 
beneath  the  burden  of  unutterable  anguish; 
now  to  the  sound  of  a  great  laughter  and 
heroic  shoutings  like  the  cry  of  thunder. 
Sometimes  in  the  silence  of  the  night-time 

8 


you  can  hear  the  tiny  hammerings  of  the 
Comrades  at  work  up  in  the  dome — the 
Comrades  who  have  climbed  ahead. 

Here  are  we  living  workers  in  the  Temple  and 
above  us — these  Comrades  of  ours  who  have 
climbed  ahead.  It  is  the  likeness  of  them  and  all 
they  mean  in  themselves  and  in  us  that  we,  the 
Women  of  the  Nation,  present  through  you,  Mr. 
Speaker,  to  the  People  of  the  United  States  of 
America. 


-Lhis  Speech 

was  only  fully  reported  in  the 
Federated  Press  and  did  not  appear  in  any  San  Fran- 
cisco paper.  'Though  not  officially  connected  with  the 
last  convention  of  the  National  Woman's  Party,  the 
occasion  for  delivery  of  this  address  was  really  a  pre- 
lude to  it.  Before  the  events  great  publicity  had  be  en 
given  both  to  the  presentation  of  the  busts  and  to  the 
convention  to  which  came  delegations  from  all  over 
the  United  States  and  from  Europe.  'This  publicity 
and  the  absence  of  any  report  in  the  regular  press  led 
to  many  requests  for  the  speech,  which  demand  still 
continues,  and  some  women,  who  feel  that  the  speech 
is  part  of  a  notable  event  of  especial  interest 
to  women,  have  caused  it  to  be 
printed. 


